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Day care doubled as meth stash house

PIX 11, May 15, 2016

PHOENIX, Ariz. — Law enforcement busted a Valley day care center at a Phoenix home on Thursday that was also a drug stash house, investigators said.

According to Erica Curry with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, agencies on the federal and local levels executed seven search warrants across Phoenix as part of an investigation into a massive methamphetamine trafficking organization.

One of the searches was at a home that was also a private in-home daycare that doubled as a meth stash house, Curry said. Around six children were cared for at the home.

The DEA said agents found one pound of meth and a half pound of cocaine at the house where there were kids.

“It is unfathomable that innocent children would be exposed to the inherent dangers of drug trafficking by those individuals entrusted with their care,” DEA Special Agent in Charge Doug Coleman said in a statement.

The day care is not a registered facility.

Neighbors, who asked not to be identified, were alarmed when they learned of the allegations.

“I never saw anything, I never had any indication that there was anything coming or going or being distributed nothing,” one neighbor said.

“It is kind of scary to think that somebody, a little one could get their hands into it,” said another neighbor.

Curry said the Mexican-source drug operation was responsible for a monthly distribution of hundred-pound quantities of meth across the U.S.

The investigation into the drug-trafficking ring started in the summer of 2015 with a drug bust of 85 pounds of methamphetamine.

During Thursday’s raid, agents arrested five people, seized an additional five pounds of meth, a half-pound of cocaine, four handguns, two rifles, a hand grenade, four military-style body armor vests and $30,000 in cash, Curry said.

Along with DEA agents and detectives, the Scottsdale Police Department Drug Enforcement Unit also participated in executing the seven search warrants.